


Every Day from This Day

by Annie D (scaramouche)



Category: Terminator (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergent, Consequences of Time Travel, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21827524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/pseuds/Annie%20D
Summary: Grace survives her mission, and gets a new one.
Relationships: Grace & Dani Ramos
Comments: 22
Kudos: 77
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Every Day from This Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Moebius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moebius/gifts).



2020

Grace wakes up. Of everything that’s happened on this mission thus far, this is the most surprising.

She opens her eyes. There’s a wooden ceiling above her and a mattress underneath her. It is quiet, though she can hear a heartbeat nearby, maybe a couple of feet away – a calm sound, and unlikely to be a hostile. The systems readout tells her that of the damage to her systems, most of it is to the chassis rather than the CPU. Her metabolism and power source are stable.

Grace remembers almost dying. She remembers the Rev-9 weakened but not dead, its liquid skin burned off to the skeleton underneath. She remembers telling Dani to take out her power source to finish off the Rev-9.

How clear everything was, in that moment. Her mission narrowed down to a single, fulfilling moment.

But she’s awake now, and very much not dead. She tries to sit up, which is a struggle, but she manages. Her eyes tell her that’s she in a cabin of some sort, where the air is musty but the bedsheets are clean. The systems readout adds that she’s been unconscious for almost a week, and that there have been alterations to her system. Minor, clumsy, life-saving alterations, but alterations all the same.

At the approach of footsteps, Grace looks up. She’s in a bedroom, but there’s a doorway leading off into the rest of the building. Dani appears in said doorway, and her shoulders relax when she sees Grace sitting up.

“Hi.” Dani’s hair is a braid over one shoulder. She’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt, which leave visible the faded burns and bruises on her forearms. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah,” Grace says slowly. “What happened?”

“I did what you said, with the power source.” Dani droops a little. “Carl gave his up so we could win.”

“Carl.”

Dani nods. She pauses, as though expecting some response other than Grace’s quiet processing. “We’re in, uh… I think you call it a safehouse?”

“Sarah’s?”

“She has allies,” Dani says, with casualness that brings home to Grace how much she might have missed in a week. “You woke up a few times, especially when we were fixing your... You don’t remember?” Grace shakes her head, and Dani continues, “It wasn’t invasive. We were just trying to stop the bits that were leaking.”

Grace takes stock. Her readouts are still running, and they confirm that there’s been no deep tinkering. “You made the right call. Thank you.”

“It’s not you who should be doing the thanking. But I’ll allow it, for now.” Dani says this lightly, as a tease, but Grace has to blink away the sudden overlay of the other Dani – the Dani that she will become – before it fades and she’s back to bring the absurdly young Dani Ramos, a young woman who’s still mourning her family and reeling from the recent upheaval of her life.

Dani smiles hopefully. “Would you like to join me for lunch?”

Truth be told, Grace isn’t that hungry. But she gets up, if only because she wants to catch up on what she’s missed. Dani’s right there with her, helping her until she can stand on her own two feet.

“Maybe to the bathroom first?” Dani suggests.

Grace huffs a laugh. “Yeah, okay.”

2042

The first time Grace heard about the possibility of time travel, she thought it a wishful dream. A familiar dream, to be sure, in the way that people dreamed about a magic button that could kill Legion, or that there was a hidden human sanctuary out there that the machines had yet to find. It was reasonable to dream, but rarely was it spoken out loud.

“Time displacement tech,” Grace said drily. “As in, a time machine.”

“I didn’t say a machine,” Loxley replied.

“A time displacement _program_ would eventually a need a rig to execute it,” Grace pointed out. “Even if it were merely sending data back in time.”

“Fair.” Loxley grinned, through her eyes never left the screen she was working on. There were only two of them in the room – Grace partially upright in the maintenance chair and Loxley studying the readouts of Grace’s augmentations – so they were free to be candid with each other.

“But it’s an interesting thought experiment, isn’t it?” Loxley said. “Depending on the rules involved in the traveling.”

“Time travel rules,” Grace echoed with a laugh. “Are you writing a movie-play for the children? Like something out of the sci-fi libraries?”

Loxley looked at Grace, then pointedly turning to the scanner readouts of Grace’s metal innards. “You’re casting judgment on what’s sci-fi and what’s not?”

“All right.” Grace relaxed against the chair, and gave the topic proper thought. “The trap, I think, would be that the rules would have to be discovered old-fashioned way. By the first traveler fumbling around and messing up.”

“Yes, that’d be a challenge. Without guidelines, the temptation to run rampant would be immense. Change as much as you can.”

“The other great temptation would be to not do anything at all. If you could physically travel back to before the war, why wouldn’t you just… live it out.”

Loxley paused where she’d moved the scanner arm past the nodes of the base of Grace’s neck. “Could you do that?”

Grace scoffed. “No.”

“Of course not,” Loxley said with a grin. “I like to think I wouldn’t, either. But it’s easy to say such things when it’s just theory.”

“Sure.”

“All right, we’re done.” Loxley nodded at something on the readout. “It looks like all the inflammation’s down, your liver and kidneys are back on top, and the installations have stabilized as much as they ever will. We’ll need to do another review in, say, a week, but you can be deployed. I’ll let the Major know.”

Loxley started to clear up the scanners, but Grace halted her with a hand on her arm. “Wait. Why’d you ask about time travel?”

“Oh, you know.”

“No, I don’t.”

Loxley frowned, confused and then sheepish. “Oh. Ah. Well. Because you volunteered for the augment procedure.”

“For the next push of the resistance’s offense,” Grace said.

“Yes,” Loxley said slowly. Then she sighed. “Sorry, I thought you already knew.”

“Already knew what?”

“I was given a program to review. Legion-written, stolen during one of the raids into core territory, and featuring exquisite quantum math for implementation on a human-scale terminator. They asked me to study the program and give my opinion on whether a human could survive it. They didn’t tell me what the program itself was for, but I saw enough of the code to figure it out.”

“What was your conclusion?”

“A human has maybe a two-third chance of surviving. An augmented human, however, would have significantly better odds.”

Grace was silent. A soldier for two decades, she’d learned enough not show horror on her face. “Legion’s building a time machine?”

“Frankly, I thought you’d know more than me. The Commander doesn’t go into the field as often anymore, but she personally led the raid that stole the program.”

“The Commander doesn’t tell me everything.”

It was a good answer, and a truthful one to boot, because the leader of the resistance shouldn’t be sharing every single one of her plans with an underling, never mind that said underling was one of the most respected soldiers in this battalion, and had been mentored by the Commander herself, and knew the Commander better than anyone else alive.

Dani’s plans were her own, and when Grace was old enough to join the active fight she’d promised that she would never, ever use their connection to push for more than was her due. Others assumed years ago that Dani was preparing Grace to take over leadership of the resistance; Grace assumed no such thing and performed the best of her ability in any role, any battalion, any zone as her Commander told her to.

Still: a time machine. If it was real, it could change everything, for better or for worse. Though it hard to imagine worse.

2020

The safehouse is a single-story cabin that has clearly been abandoned for some time, up until recently. Attempts have been made to clean up and organize the place, with supplies, electronics and weapons in their sections. It’s all rudimentary, but acceptable.

At the moment, Grace’s sensors don’t pick up anyone in the building or its immediate surroundings. Dani chatters as she leads Grace to the dining table, describing how this house belongs to someone who owes Sarah a favor, and that Sarah is out on an errand.

“She left you by yourself?” Grace says.

Dani pushes the bowl of chicken soup into Grace’s hands. “There are warning traps around the house.”

“That’s not enough—”

“It’s simple math, no?” Dani says. “Even if Legion were to send another terminator, our only options are to stay hidden, to run, or to fight it. We are already hidden, and there’s a getaway car in the garage. As for fighting, there’s only so much advantage that two humans can have over one. So there’s no reason Sarah should have to stay with me at all times.”

“You’ve got it all figured out, have you?” Grace says wryly.

“No, not really. But it’s a start.” Dani has her own bowl of soup, and digs into it. Grace follows after a time, intending to inhale the whole thing perfunctorily. But then Dani says, “I could make it better, but spices are a ‘luxury’.” Her mouth quirking around the word that has to be a quote from Sarah. “I hope it’s still okay?”

“It’s very good,” Grace says.

“Are you just saying that, because I’m the one who made it? You can be honest, you know.”

“The future’s a crapsack. Even the ancient tinned stuff tastes like Michelin five star.”

Dani starts. “Michelin is still a word you use in the future?”

“It’s… yeah.” Grace shrugs. “No predicting what stays on and what doesn’t, I guess.”

“That is interesting. Of course, that also means that I could feed you ancient tinned stuff and you’d enjoy it anyway, so your opinion doesn’t really matter.”

Grace laughs under her breath, which has the added bonus of making Dani smile. “Guess not.”

The soup is, once Grace has slowed enough to register it, honestly pretty good. Not that Grace noticed much else about the food she’s been eating since she got here. Other than Dani, everything and everyone about this time feels unreal – fragile, paper-thin and as insubstantial as smoke. So much of this will be destroyed in the first wave, and more in the second, so Grace has been noticing the bare minimum as necessary to keep Dani alive and safe.

What’s real, and what’s worth thinking about, is the oncoming threat. The future – Dani’s past – that is speeding up to them like that first missile that Legion will send into sub-orbit.

“I was wondering,” Dani says. “What comes after the Rev-9?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were sent to protect me from the Rev-9. And then what?”

Grace thinks that if she weren’t augmented, the hand holding the soup spoon would twitch or fumble. It would be a minor tell, maybe not even noticeable. Even so, she’s grateful that the only stutter in her reaction happens within the confines of her head.

“It’s not just the Rev-9,” Grace says. “I’m to protect you through the start of the war. To make sure you survive through it.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, that makes sense.” Dani looks around the safehouse’s dining room, as though measuring the building’s suitability to wait out the next five years.

It’s very much _not_ suitable, of course. If Grace had her way, she’d do the very thing that she’d suggested before and Dani balked at, i.e. put her at the bottom of a mineshaft until the first wave was over. After that, it’s no longer survival but action, and by then Dani will be ready.

Yes, Grace thinks, that has to be the rest of her mission, now that the Rev-9 is gone. Keep Dani safe, and in the meantime get her ready for the fight to come. Grace doesn’t know how long she has left; it might be some incident that’ll kill her before the war, or the augmentations will cause her body to break down in ways the resistance’s scientists didn’t know enough about. She has to make every day count, and she has to start now.

“So you’d know, then, where would be safest for me to stay,” Dani says. “Or perhaps, where is most strategic for me to stay?”

“Yes, I think so,” Grace says. “I don’t know where you’ll be when the computers collapse. But I do know where you are when the resistance starts.”

“Is it here? In this country, I mean? Wait, let me get a…”

Dani gets up to fetch an old-fashioned paper map and a handful of pennies. She spreads the map over the dining table, and uses the pennies to mark where they are, where they crossed the border, where Carl’s home is, where Dani came from, and other places of interest.

Grace dips her fingers into the pile of pennies, and starts marking new places: where Dani first found her (will find her), where the earliest resistance base was (will be), where they had (will have) their first win against Legion.

“You had armories,” Grace says. “At the time I thought that you’d put it all together after the first bombs fell, but now I think that you had them ready before that.”

“As in, I start stockpiling now.” The lack of surprise in Dani’s voice is interesting. She seems to notice Grace’s curiosity, and says, “Sarah did the same. Back when she found out about the first Judgment Day.”

“There’s no first,” Grace says, a little sharper than she means to. “There’s just this war. This is the one that matters, Legion is the one that matters.”

“Okay,” Dani says easily. “Do you have ideas about what I should stockpile, and where?”

“Hell yeah,” Grace says.

2042

A few days after getting the green from Loxley, Grace put her new body to a field test, for speed, strength, agility and recovery time. Her squad got a couple of trophies from the outing, among them the CPU of a Rev-7 for science team to analyze.

It was upon returning to base that Grace heard that the Commander was on-site. After the debrief, Grace found her way down to the Commander’s assigned quarters. Apparently she’d been expected, because Nicolas and Fowler let her through without comment.

The Commander’s room was concrete grey, drab and functional; much like the rest of the base, except here there was the luxury of privacy. The Commander herself was sitting at the war table reading the latest reports, though she stood up as Grace entered.

“Commander.” Grace started to step forward with an arm out on offer – an automatic gesture which could never be unlearned, no matter how many times the Commander waved her off. The Commander waved her off this time, too, despite her recent injury. “Dani. How are you?”

“The new leg’s shaping up.” She’d initially refused a prosthetic, but the war room insisted. The Commander needed to be mobile, and she only accepted it under the argument that in doing so she wouldn’t need bodyguards to help her around. “Come, sit. I haven’t seen you since the surgery.”

Grace sat opposite her at the table, and didn’t demur when the Commander offered her a drink. They drank a toast to nothing, exchanged what passed for small talk, and shared a minute or so of quiet.

They didn’t see each other as often those days as they did during the early years of the resistance. This was a point of pride, for Grace was one of the Commander’s trusted, and could always be counted on to fulfil her duty wherever she was. Still, it was a relief for Grace to see her again, and this time with updated optics that could confirm that the Commander had recovered from the last blast fall.

In fact, Grace realized that she was in some sense seeing the Commander for the (second) first time. Commander Dani Ramos, leader of the resistance, larger than life despite her stature, and with dark eyes that saw too much. Grace wondered if the Commander had gained more gray in her hair compared to the last time they saw each other, or if it was just the optics making the contrast clearer.

“Your augments,” the Commander said. “How are you adjusting?”

“Not bad,” Grace said. “It’s easier than I thought it would be, once I got used to the additional weight. The crash is annoying, though.”

“Short, controlled bursts,” the Commander said. “You have to make every second count.”

“I understand.” Grace considered her words. “Dani? I’ve heard something about… time travel.”

If it were anyone else here, they would’ve thought the Commander polite and mildly interested. But even without her augmentations, Grace spotted the tells: the sudden stillness of the Commander’s hands, the minute tip of her head backwards as the tension in her neck uncoiled.

“You’ve heard,” the Commander said. “Yes, we’ve gotten our hands on a program, which we’re adjusting to our needs.”

“You’re taking it seriously.” Grace found that she was more surprised by this, rather than by the idea of time travel in itself. “You think that Legion’s discovered actual time travel.”

The Commander seemed amused by her reaction. “You’re skeptical.”

“If Legion had such a weapon at their disposal, we’d all be dead already. They’d use it to wipe us out cleanly at the start, without this protracted war.”

“That’s thinking like a human,” the Commander said. “If all the AI is interested in is efficiency, by simple numbers the first strike _was_ efficient.”

“That’s true,” Grace said slowly. It was surreal to be talking about this as casually as they would any other new intel on Legion. To dream about time travel was one thing, but to face it as a truth was another. Grace found that she didn’t want to believe it, not with how much the machine had taken of the world. But if the Commander believed it, she would have to as well. Grace continued, “From its point of view, the first few years of the war were successful. It’s what came afterward that’s been the challenge. We’re more persistent then they expected.”

“The stubbornness of humanity,” the Commander said with a laugh. She wasn’t like other leaders of the resistance. Although the years weighed on her, she still smiled, still joked, still believed. In her lived hope, and those around her remembered that hope.

A thought occurred to Grace: one solid horror among a greater, vaguer horror. “Do you know what Legion’s going to do with the time machine?”

“Yes,” the Commander said. “They’re going to send a Rev-9 back to a few years before Judgment Day, and it’s going to hunt me down.”

Grace didn’t gasp, but she did clench her jaw as some half-dozen questions thickened her throat. What were the Rev-9’s capabilities? When would it be made? How did the Commander defeat it in the past? Did this mean that she knew about Legion and Judgement Day before the war ever happened?

Why hadn’t Dani told her about this before, in all the years they’d known each other?

“I hoped that it wouldn’t get this far,” the Commander said quietly. “I hoped that this time, I’d be better and we’d defeat Legion quicker, before they ever developed the tech. But here we are, and we need to take the steps to make sure that the resistance survives.”

“Of course,” Grace said.

“You’re upset.” The Commander nodded, as though it wasn’t a surprise to her. “I haven’t told anyone about this until now. Partially, because I hoped I would never have to. But also to avoid the questions I’d be asked – on what I’d seen before the first wave.”

Grace understood this. It made sense, it was logical and sensible, and truth be told, she would’ve had trouble believing in time travel much the same way she’d had trouble believing in infiltration terminators until she saw them. But knowing all of this didn’t preclude the sting of not being told.

“You need to process,” the Commander said.

“I’m not a kid,” Grace snapped, even as part of her was appalled at her reaction. “You could’ve trusted me with this.”

“It’s not about trust,” the Commander said. Grace knew this was true as well, because the Commander trusted her with far worse, and far more dangerous. Still, Grace felt her own hackles rising, even when the Commander said, almost gently, “I excuse you, if you’d like to leave.”

Grace rose to her feet, though less so out of anger at Dani, and more in order to prevent herself for saying something else she would regret. “Yes, thank you.”

2020

Later in the day, when Grace’s systems are more stable, they take a walk outside. Dani shows Grace the grounds, with its warning traps and multiple escape routes. The fortifications are crude but thorough, and just sufficient for now. The cabin itself is in a forest reserve of some sort, and it’s secluded enough that there’s even an area for target practice in the back.

“You’ve been shooting?” Grace says.

“Some,” Dani says. “My aim’s getting better.”

“Pencil me in for tomorrow. I want to see what you’ve got.”

“Actually, there’s something else.” Dani spins on one heel, and comes to stand in front of Grace.

She’s a whole head shorter, but until Grace landed in 2020 she’d never viewed that size as a shortcoming. Commander Ramos is vicious and quick, with a strategic mind to make every strike count. But that is Commander Ramos; Dani Ramos is her bright yellow blouse and ponytail makes for a somewhat less threatening figure, even when she raises her fists.

“I need to learn how to fight, right?” Dani says. “You can show me?”

“Your stance is good.” As soon as Grace says that, she realizes with annoyance that Sarah must have already shown her a few moves. She holds her palms up. “Pop me.”

Dani throws a punch. It’s a decent try, but has little strength behind it. Grace adjusts her stance and lets Dani keep trying – punch, kick, block – until Dani trips, her foot catching the ground at an awkward angle. Grace is immediately there to catch her, and the feel of Dani’s smaller body tucked against hers is familiar by now.

Grace feels a rush of gratitude – at being here, and being able to do this – but Dani makes an annoyed sound and pulls away.

“You laugh at me,” Dani says.

“What?” Grace realizes she’s smiling. “God, no, I’m not laughing _at_ you.”

“You are.” Dani tugs at her ponytail crossly, tightening it. “You see me like this, unable to defend myself, and it’s funny.”

“Dani—”

“It took three of you to protect me. And even that was a close call.”

“It was an unfair fight, and specifically designed by Legion to be so. You have to believe me, you’re going to do amazing things, and Legion will be _terrified_ of you.”

“One day, you mean,” Dani says, her face twisting. “In the future, when I am amazing, clever, and brave.”

“You’re already amazing, clever and brave.” Grace sighs. “Look. I wish I didn’t have to, but the war is going to bring out the best and the worst in what we – human beings – are capable of. And for you, it’s going to bring out a side of you that’s always been there: to lead, to show by example, and to have faith. I’m not laughing at you, Dani. I’m just happy to be here. That’s all.”

Dani turned away a little into Grace’s small speech, but she looks back at her now. Her eyes are alert, and for second seemingly able to cut through to the jumble of Grace’s thoughts.

“You may be happy to be here, but you miss her,” Dani says. “The Dani Ramos that you knew.”

“I guess? But that’s you. I mean, it will be you.”

Dani tilts her head, and her smile is at once sharp and sad. “Are you sure?”

“What?”

“You care so much, when you don’t know me.”

“No,” Grace says quickly, “I _do_ know you—”

“You know stories of me, as I am today. Just as you know a woman of the future that I might become. Either way, you don’t know _me_.” Dani shrugs. “It’s fine, it’s okay. I understand the burden that you’ve brought to me. At least, I’m starting to understand, and hopefully…” She sighs and presses a hand to her eyes.

Grace freezes, suddenly uncertain. An overwhelmed and frightened Dani, she knew to expect and knows how to handle. But Dani is aware and angry now, and still deeply shaken for it.

This makes sense, Grace reminds herself. Dani was able to hold it together when the Rev-9 chased them, because of the immediacy of the threat. Now there’s breathing room, which allows Dani to process. And there’s a great deal to process, in order to get her feet back under her.

In the future, it was the Commander who helped Grace get _her_ feet under her, and guided her out of her fear. Commander Dani was always so sure of herself and her cause, and strong in ways that Grace spent years trying to live up to. That strength and stubbornness seemed so inherent to Dani, that it followed that it’d be inherent to _this_ Dani, too. Which is perhaps an unfair shortcut for Grace to take.

Just because Dani was ready to hear what the future held for her, that didn’t mean she was ready to take the whole burden with both hands.

“Hey.” Grace steps forward. “It’s a lot. I forget, sometimes, that for you this is…” She looks up. Blue sky, white clouds, with none of the perpetual gray of Legion’s world. This is normal for Dani. This is her baseline.

“I’m going to disappoint you,” Dani says.

“You’d never,” Grace says fiercely. She takes Dani into her arms, and for a half-second wonder if it’s too forward – touching her to protect her is one thing, but this is not that, and Grace had long outgrown this with her Commander – but then Dani’s lifting her own arms around Grace’s back to return the hug.

In fact, Dani squeezes tight, as though in gratitude. Grace is surprised, then gratified, and squeezes back.

“I will,” Dani says, her voice muffled against Grace’s collarbone. “I know exactly how I’ll disappoint you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Dani tilts her head up. Her eyes are clear but impatient. “Were you sent here to die for me?”

“Death was an obvious possibility—”

“ _This is what you sent me here to do_ ,” Dani says. “That’s what you said, just before you passed out. What does that make you? A postman from the future? To send a message and a battery?”

“Pretty expensive, for a postman.”

“Very expensive, yes.” Dani sighs. “That’s why I’m going to disappoint you.”

2042

Grace took a few days to wrap her head around it – _time travel!_ – and whittled down her concerns to the handful that really mattered. Thus readied, she returned to the Commander, who agreed to see her immediately.

“Now come the questions,” the Commander said.

Grace took a deep breath. “I want in, whatever you’re doing next.”

“Grace—”

“If you’re planning more raids, or attacking the core, or whatever sabotage you want to hit the displacement tech – I can help.” Grace stood tall, refusing to be embarrassed. She could see the Commander gearing up on a rebuttal, and quickly added, “At the very least, let me be your bodyguard. I was already one of the best, but I’m an augment now.”

“Is that why you volunteered for the procedure?”

There were many reasons for Grace’s choice. Every single one of those reasons were logical, but at that moment, with the Commander watching her expectantly, Grace felt herself reduced to the starving, tiny, _angry_ beanpole she had once been. It wasn’t a nice feeling, especially as Grace realized that she’d been getting this feeling more and more often lately, as the resistance gained more firepower and upped its strikes against the core city.

“Dani, I’ve never asked anything from you before,” Grace said. “You’ve done so much for me – for us, for the resistance, but mostly for _me_ – and I’ve never wanted anything in return.”

When the Commander opened her mouth, Grace expected her to say, _I know_. But instead she said, “I wish you did.”

Grace startled. “What?”

“I wish you wanted something else in return,” the Commander said wearily. “Your own squad to lead, maybe, or a zone all your own, instead of this—”

“Just wanting you to be safe?” Grace said in disbelief. “You’re goddamned Commander Ramos, it’s _everyone_ ’s job is to make sure that you’re safe. Except when I want to do my part, it’s suddenly a problem.”

When the Commander didn’t try to rebut this, Grace took a calming breath and continued, “I’ve worked damn hard to be here. You believe in me, and you trust me, but lately you’ve been…” She scowled at the Commander’s new leg. “I should’ve been on that raid with you. You’ve always called me for the big ones. And now this – this _time travel_ – this could be the biggest of all. I have no questions whatsoever about what you saw in the past. All I want is to be part of whatever you have planned now. Because you _do_ have something planned.”

“I have something planned,” the Commander agreed.

“Then let me help you. Let me do this.”

“You will do it. Which is the problem.”

An unusual choice of words, which brought Grace up short. “What does that mean?” Grace asked.

The Commander paused, though whether in trying to pick her wording or muster energy, Grace couldn’t be sure. Grace felt her anger curdling, while in front of her the Commander seemed, for a second, less the last beacon of hope for a human resistance, and more a tired soldier whom hundreds of people had been begging her to hand off more of her duties on those younger and fitter than she was.

“You will time travel,” the Commander said. “You will go to the year 2020, before the first strike, and save me from the Rev-9. That is the mission.”

Grace took this information with the same care as she did the thousands of orders she’d received before. She had no questions.

“Good.” Grace ignored the Commander’s flinch. “I wondered if it was something like this.”

“Did you now?” the Commander said.

Indeed, Grace had spent some time coming to terms with how time travel might work, and the idea of causality. A closed loop where what happened had to happen because it’d already happened.

Grace would go into the past to save Dani, because Dani had already been saved by her. But more than that, this chain of events explained Dani herself, who seemed to come out of nowhere in the aftermath of Judgment Day, driven by a belief that had been burned clear out of everyone else who’d survived Legion’s systematic annihilation.

A small woman physically, but looming large and unignorable for every word out of her mouth. She’d accomplished and kept accomplishing the impossible. Others wondered how she could do it all, but Grace never did.

“Did you think I’d think less of you?” Grace asked. “Just because you knew what was coming, it doesn’t mean you would’ve automatically become the leader you are today.”

The Commander met Grace’s gaze. Then she turned way, and Grace chose to read the loo I her eyes as understanding, instead of resignation.

“That’s not what I was thinking of at all,” Dani said.

2020

They head back to the cabin, during which Grace gets very little else out of Dani. There are no further explanations, and Dani stays withdrawn and taciturn.

Grace feels this may be her fault. She’d asked for too much, or maybe even revealed too much too early. But that’s done and cannot be taken back. All that’s left is forward, and what Grace can do to salvage it.

It’s evening now, and the cabin’s windows are filled with a glorious non-apocalyptic sunset. Dani excuses herself to her room, leaving Grace by herself.

Grace takes the opportunity to do some further checks on her system. She does in the cabin’s main living area, which is both dining and sitting area, and the kitchen separated through the doorway. The map that Dani took out is still on the dining table, and it brings Dani’s attention to other papers strewn across the couch and coffee table.

Curiosity compels Grace. She gets up and rummages around, though she takes care not to take anything out of order. There are maps, newspaper clippings and old-fashioned computer printouts. There are lists of numbers and codenames; Grace rummages through her CPU memory to align them with major military installations across North America and Western Europe.

When Dani returns, Grace asks: “What is this?”

“The start of an investigation,” Dani says. “We’re trying to find out where and what Legion might be today.”

 _We_. Grace bristles. “You literally almost died because of one terminator – one. And you’re looking for trouble now?”

Dani’s body language... changes. A subtle change, but Grace’s receptors catch it: the straightening of her back, stiffening of her shoulders. Readiness and acceptance of an oncoming fight.

“Carl died for me,” Dani says. “I don’t care what Sarah says – he was a person. He made choices the way you and I do, and he chose to give up his life for me. And if what you say is true, he’s going to be the first of many, and I can’t accept that.”

“Dani, you can’t think of it like that—”

“It’s the truth, and dancing around it won’t help anyone.”

“Yes, he died, but not just for _you_. He died for the sake of humanity.”

“And I need to make that count, yes?”

“Yes, of course,” Grace says in exasperation, “but not by looking for trouble.”

“That is funny,” Dani says. “Being the leader of a resistance sounds exactly like looking for trouble. I’ve just decided to look for it a little earlier. Find Legion. Stop it, before it ever starts the war.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Why are you so certain?”

“I know how time travel works, all right,” Grace snaps. “I trained for this. It’s a loop – what happened will happen because it has always happened. Legion sent the Rev-9 after you because you will become the leader of the resistance, and you become the leader of the resistance _because_ they sent the Rev-9 after you, putting you on this path.”

“So… ‘no fate but what we make’. That is bullshit, in your opinion?” Despite her anger, Dani’s eyes sparkle.

“That’s not what that means. It means that when the world gives us an unfair hand, it’s up to us to rise above it.”

“By trying to change history,” Dani says simply. “That is, fate.”

“No!”

“Then explain Sarah.” Dani tilts her chin up, and Grace feels a familiar flash of terror, whenever Dani’s choices send her careening away and out of Grace’s reach. “She stopped Skynet, changed the future. It can be done, because it has been done before.”

“Skynet isn’t a thing. Whatever Sarah thinks she knows isn’t what the future actually is.”

“I think that’s why you don’t like her,” Dani says thoughtfully. “You had a mission, and although it is difficult, it was clear, a straight line. And then Sarah comes, proving that straight line to be not so straight after all.”

“That’s… not true.”

“Then I’ll tell what is true. I know that where you came from, a woman named Dani Ramos saved your life, knowing that one day she would send you on a mission that would kill you.” Dani blinks, her eyes suddenly too bright. “I don’t want to be that woman, so I choose not to be.”

Grace inhales sharply. “Dani, you don’t understand, you save people—”

“I won’t be her,” Dani says firmly. “I won’t be leader of a resistance. I will do everything I can stop a war from starting in the first place. And even if this doesn’t work – and maybe it doesn’t, I don’t know – if I one day find a young girl named Grace, I will save her, but I will give her to others to keep safe.”

“You can’t do that!”

“No fate! None! My choice!” Dani backs away suddenly, as though surprised by her own vehemence. “Your Dani may have loved you, but I cannot and do not want to understand someone who could send you to your death.”

“The world needs you. You’re so important.”

“Later, you mean. In the future. But if I’m to be important, I’d rather it be now.” Dani sees Grace gear up for another argument, and takes another quick step back. “I’m sorry, Grace. I did say you’d be disappointed in me.”

“That’s…” The approach of a vehicle brings Grace up short. She tilts her head, listening. “What kind of car does Sarah drive?”

“An old pick-up.”

“Yeah, then that should be her.” Grace looks at Dani, who relaxes slightly. A truce, as it were.

The grip of terror around Grace’s chest eases up, but very little. If Grace came all this way and survived everything, just to mess up on her mission _anyway_ , then it’s… No, she refuses. Dani just needs a little convincing. She might even change her mind, once she finds out that there’s no beating Legion before the fact.

(But is that true? Commander Dani never said she tried and failed, did she?)

The pick-up comes to a halt just outside the cabin. None of the alarms have been triggered.

Dani makes for the doorway. “Sarah’s going to need help unloading.”

“Okay,” Grace says as she follows.

2042

There was training. If Grace was to travel back to 2020, she’d have to be prepared. Her memories of the early twenty-first century were hazy and no doubt inaccurate; it felt as if she’d been living Legion’s ash-grey world forever.

Grace had refreshers on old weaponry, vehicles and communication devices. She learned strategies of infiltration for a world not-yet torn by war.

She learned about Dani Ramos, _before._

“You mustn’t tell me at first, what my role is in the future,” the Commander said. “The girl I was once won’t be able to take that information on the onset. But you’ll know the right moment, when it comes.”

“Got it,” Grace said.

“Grace.”

There it was, the hesitance that Grace had been waiting for. They were in the command center’s deep archives, just the two of them, poring over old maps and technical drawings that seemed like they’d fall apart at any moment.

The Commander pushed away from the table and pressed a hand to her temple. Doubt flickered in her eyes, and Grace was quick to speak.

“I want to do this,” Grace said. “I’m meant to do this. You know that.”

“You’re too eager,” the Commander said.

“Because I’m doing something that matters.”

“Hah! You keep being angry at me for the wrong things.” The Commander’s voice vibrated thick, the way it sometimes did when she argued with her generals. “You’re pissed at me when I won’t take you on dangerous missions, when won’t let you be my bodyguard, when I won’t let you throw your body on the grenade for me.”

“You’d rather I do nothing at all?”

“I’m sending you _away_ , Grace,” the Commander said. “Do you understand that?”

“Of course I understand.”

Grace was smart. She understood causality, and she understood what type of mission this was.

She understood that at the start of the resistance, Dani had only a handful of followers, and there was no tall, blonde, augmented woman among them. She understood that the Rev-9 would be the most advanced terminator Legion would pour their resources into; a final hurrah to take down humanity’s problem point, and would be difficult for even an augmented human to take down.

She also understood that Dani’s mantra – _fuck fate_ – defined everything she did for the resistance. There was no fate but what they made for ourselves, so they would survive and thrive and win, despite everything Legion threw at them. It made sense that Dani would’ve put her teeth around the idea of fate and bite down hard; a response to how, as a young woman, fate put its eye on her first, dragging her kicking and screaming into the apocalypse that would be.

Did the fact that time travel was somewhat responsible for Dani’s choices mean that fate was more powerful than she thought? Did the fact Grace had to go back in time mean that they had no choice after all?

Grace recognized all these questions, but decided on this: she didn’t care. All that was important was that the resistance needed their Commander. The war would be won, and humanity would survive and rebuild, as long as Commander Ramos could keep the fight going.

“I could die tomorrow,” Grace said. “Any mission can be a last mission.”

“I will see you off into the displacement machine,” the Commander said, “but I won’t say goodbye to you in front of the others. I’m saying it now.”

“Dani—”

“I will miss you dearly.” The Commander reached out, her hand sliding the back of Grace’s neck and pulling. Grace went with it, and closed her eyes into the embrace. The Commander said, her voice low, “I will miss you and think of you every day.”

“That’s a bit defeatist, don’t you think?” A futile attempt at levity, perhaps, but worth trying for the Commander’s sake. “I might live on into the war and then you’ll have to contend with two of us.”

The Commander laughed, but the sound was small. “No. No matter what happens, I’ll never see you again. My fight continues here, while yours will be there.”

Grace opened her mouth to point out that it’s the same fight in the end, but something – a steely, sad glint in Dani’s eye, perhaps – had her deciding against it. Instead she said, “I hope it all works out, anyway.”

The Commander nodded. “Me, too.”

2020

Grace and Dani help Sarah unload the truck and carry things into the house. Among the newly-arrived boxes are perishables, clothes, toiletries, and a couple of hand weapons thrown on top. There’s very little talking as they work, aside from Sarah’s grumbling that they not mix her shit up.

But Sarah does notice the tension between Grace and Dani, in their silence and the way they move around each other in bringing the boxes inside. Sarah arches her eyebrow at the Grace, which is somehow more annoying than if she’d pointed commented on them out loud.

“Okay then,” Sarah says when they’re done. “Inventory can wait for tomorrow.”

“I can do that now,” Dani says. “With the rest of the—”

“Yeah.” Sarah’s gaze moves from Dani, who’s rummaging around the box closest to her, to Grace, who hasn’t made any move to help. “I’m having my nightcap on the porch.”

Grace watches her go, then follows. She feels Dani’s eyes on her as she does, but Dani says nothing, so Grace keeps her course.

There is, in fact, a couple of chairs on the cabin’s porch. Sarah’s taken the sturdiest-looking one, and has slung one leg over the porch railing. She doesn’t react when Grace takes the chair next to her, as she seems too busy trying to decide whether to start on the bottle or her pack cigarettes first. She ends up picking a cigarette, and offers one to Grace, who just makes a face at her.

It’s not that Grace is raring for a fight. It’s fear that compels her; fear of failing Dani and the world, but mainly Dani.

“You’ve been putting ideas in her head,” Grace says.

“Right,” Sarah says, “because Dani is very susceptible to people putting ideas in her head.”

Grace’s hackles go up. She knows she shouldn’t, because Sarah baits as often as she breathes, but Sarah’s entitled overfamiliarity has rubbed Grace the wrong way from day one. Sarah’s the loose cog, the unexpected wild card, and Dani’s latching onto her is aggravating.

“We barely survived the Rev-9,” Grace says. “If they send another one, and we’re out there making noise and getting eyes on us, we’re done. Humanity needs her if it’s to survive. You understand _that_ , don’t you?”

Sarah shrugs. “I understand that wanting to keep someone safe, especially when their life is so obviously more important than yours – it warps the way you think about them.”

Grace stares at Sarah for a long moment. “You know what I think?”

“You’re gonna tell me.”

“I think you’re so invested in ‘helping’ Dani because you want to get it right with her, where you didn’t with your son.”

Sarah takes a slow drag of her cigarette. In the moonlight, her eyes are almost grey. “Is that supposed to be some unexpected insight? That what we playing at? Okay, here’s mine. Your problem is that you look at Dani and you see someone else. So there’s some future Dani Ramos out there who’s the savior of mankind, and more importantly she’s _your_ savior and you put her a pedestal for that. I hate to break it you, but that Dani is gone, and all we’ve got here is this skinny kid with a big heart who wants to make a difference on her own terms, no matter what you or some fucked up future AI thinks she ought to be.”

“They’re the same person.”

“You sure about that? You _that_ confident about how time travel works?” Sarah sighs. “Fine, I get it. The war feels like a fixed point in the universe. Permanent. But if you’re going to help Dani – _really_ help Dani – you need to let that go. All of it, all that certainty. You took this mission to die for Dani? Big fucking whoop. How about trying to live for her? Because hell if I get it, but she needs you, and not as a soldier.”

Grace startles. “What?”

“She needs you,” Sarah says, barely suppressing an eye-roll. “It’s the only reason we didn’t dump your ass as soon as you stabilized. That and Dani’s soft heart, of course, but she knew the risk in keeping you around. You’d try to fight her on what she wants to do next, but she thought it’d be worthwhile to convince you.”

Grace’s surprise has her unable to immediately reply. It never crossed her mind that Dani could leave her behind, or even just consider it. For a second Grace thinks Sarah is just messing with her, but then she remembers Dani’s signed admission that Grace would be disappointed her. Maybe Dani thought that Grace would be the one to leave her instead, once she found Dani lacking.

As if she ever would.

But that’s projecting, too, isn’t it? It’s expecting Dani to fulfil an ideal. Grace never thought of it that way before, because to her Dani was just Dani – be it young or old, wide-eyed or a silver-haired commander – and it surely wasn’t wrong to treat her the same, knowing what she would one day be capable of.

So set was Grace in this belief, that Sarah’s existence unsettled her from the start. She’d ignored it as much as she could, chalking up Sarah and Carl’s future as an anomaly that wasn’t relevant to the _actual_ future, but that kind of thinking only goes so far. Especially now that they’ve defeated the Rev-9 and there are no further instructions for Grace to refer to.

Did Commander Dani know this and limit her mission orders? Or did she not give Grace any further orders because the Rev-9’s defeat played out differently for her?

At long last Grace says, “Those’ll kill you.”

Sarah snort-laughs, and salutes Grace with the cigarette. “I’ve been told.”

Grace doesn’t offer any excuses, and leaves Sarah to her contemplation. Back inside the cabin, Dani has finished with two boxes and is sorting through the clothes, folding and setting them in piles.

There’s space next to Dani, where she’s sitting on the floor. Grace joins her with a quiet, “Hey.”

“Hi,” Dani says. “Some of these will need to be cleaned.”

“More work, then.” Grace watches Dani for a few seconds, and then joins her in pulling items from the pile and checking for damage. It’s not that much different from scavenging in the future, except that there’s far less dust, dirt and blood to contend with.

Grace frowns. “I think…”

Dani tilts her head, an indication that she’s listening.

“I don’t have many memories from before the war,” Grace says. “I know I should have, because it wasn’t like I was a baby when it first came down, but it’s all … vague. Like an old dream, just out of reach. Even those years I had to survive on my own, it’s a blur of hunger and fear.”

“I’m sorry that you had to go through that,” Dani says softly.

“I’m sorry about your father and brother,” Grace says. “I don’t think I said that before. I should have.”

Dani nods. “Thank you. You were saying?”

“Right. Yeah. It really is almost as if my life started for real when you…” Grace pauses. “When Dani, the other Dani, found me. New clarity, new focus, a reason to live and fight. That meant more to me than mere survival. Dani always seemed to know what she was doing, and that made her like a… an anchor. As long as she lived and was leading us, everything made sense.”

“That’s a lot to put on one person,” Dani says carefully.

“Yeah, maybe. But that’s all I’d had to hold on to. I needed it. Because otherwise it’s just… despair, and the machines might as well have won. Do you understand?”

“I’m trying.”

“And now it’s…” Where Dani can only try to imagine the war, Grace can only try to imagine a world without it. Or to be more precise, she can only try to imagine a world where the fight is different, and it’s no longer about scraping up resources, or hitting Legion’s network systematically, or always being able to turn to Commander Ramos for guidance.

Grace realizes that she’s terrified.

She’s augmented, so there’s no shaking in her frame, but Dani must see something in her face because she takes Grace’s hand in hers and squeezes. Grace is startled by this, too, as she is by every single one of Dani’s gentle gestures. It’s a detail among many that make up the whole of who Dani is.

For all of Dani’s courage and determination, and regardless of how much loss she’s suffered so far, she is still untouched by the cataclysm of Judgment Day. To Dani, the future is open and full of possibilities. And it’s a view towards that, that she’s chosen to fight.

“My mission was straightforward,” Grace says. “Save you, so you could save everyone else. I knew how to fulfil that mission. Now it’s…”

Dani gives up any pretense of sorting through the clothes and shifts over. She presses her shoulder against Grace’s, the warmth giving something for Grace to focus on her thoughts right wildly.

“You’re not alone,” Dani says. “We’ll figure all of this out together, okay?”

“Okay.” Grace wills herself to not be embarrassed. There’s nothing wrong about _Dani_ being the one to comfort _her_ , and there’s nothing wrong with Grace’s enjoying it. “I’m sorry I got mad at you.”

Dani grins. “You’re a righteous soldier on a mission. You believe in your cause.”

“Which had me thinking of the bright idea of shoving you into a hole for the next five years.”

“No, I can’t say I’m a fan of that.”

Grace huffs a laugh. “Better to take the fight to them?”

“I don’t know,” Dani admits. “Maybe? But worth trying, I think.”

Dani moves again, this time to rest her chin on Grace’s shoulder. It’s an almost childish gesture, and in here more than anywhere else Grace realizes that this Dani is a peer, an equal, a partner, and touchable in ways that Commander Ramos could never be. There is sorrow in this realization, even as a long-quiet, tremulous part of Grace’s heart quivers unexpectedly.

But Grace has to say one more thing on that matter. “When my Commander – Dani, from the future – said goodbye to me, it felt so final, and she was so…” _Sad_ isn’t the right word, but Grace can’t find a better one. “I thought it had to be because she knew I’d die on this mission.”

“Maybe that’s true,” Dani says. “Maybe the Grace that saved her from the Rev-9 _did_ die. So she believed that she was sending you to your death.”

“Or maybe she hoped that it’d play out differently this time.” Grace flushes, realizing she’s dropped into the old habit of defending her Commander from anyone, even a younger version of herself. 

“And if that’s the case, when my Commander said goodbye to me, it’s because she knew I’d be living out a different world. And that _you_ would be someone else, and have a different destiny than hers.”

“Oh,” Dani says with a laugh. “So that is possible now, in your opinion? That history can be changed?”

“Who the hell knows,” Grace grumbles. Feeling daring, she shifts her head to let it rest against Dani’s. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

“I’m glad you did, though.”

Grace considers where she is, and the ridiculousness of being surrounded by a stack of old clothes and second-hand weapons and barely a decent lead on where to find the proto-AI that will soon destroy the world. She’s still scared, and will need time to process, but knowing where her fear comes from is half the battle.

“Yeah. Me, too.” Grace’s augmentation assures that her heart beats steadily, but now that beat matches the steady calming of her thoughts.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Sarah's dialogue in the [alternate ending](https://youtu.be/JgUsMkbipQQ) of Terminator 2: Judgment Day.


End file.
